


The Void

by Telanadas



Category: Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Angst, Depression, I'm Sorry, M/M, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, To be quite honest I can be found to be horrid in the categorization field
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-09-18
Updated: 2016-12-02
Packaged: 2018-08-15 15:26:31
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,640
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8061706
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Telanadas/pseuds/Telanadas
Summary: Inquisitor Kaedreyn Lavellan never took his position lightly. There were times, however, where he could get a little lost in his own little alcove.

 
 
 
 
A small collection of the DA fics I started, but never finished or never knew how to finish. In other words; fic dump/graveyard.





	1. Kaedreyn's Alcove (Of Cobwebs and Dust)

**Author's Note:**

> Warning: These do abruptly cut off, as I stopped writing them because I either wasn't sure where to go with them, didn't have the time to finish, or lost any inspiration.  
> Maybe I'll finish them one day, but for the time being I suppose this to be the best that they get.  
> To be quite honest, I sort of stumbled across them. Files buried in my old laptop.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Inquisitor Kaedreyn Lavellan never took his position lightly. There were times, however, where he could get a little lost in his own little alcove.

Kaedreyn Lavellan was well known to be an avid reader. There rarely was a moment between every ridiculous mission or deathly important decision thrown his way that he did not have his freckled nose buried in one tome or another. Some may even go as far as to say he may challenge Dorian's own literary prowess, if he ever did stray from fabulous tales of adventure. Not to say he only ever read books of fantasy, merely that a daring story of peril and danger was precisely the sort of tale that stole all of his attention and absolutely refused to give it back without the promise of another fragile page turned. Often times, Dorian himself began to ponder as to the tales beyond the yellowed pages, the unfamiliar scraped up binding of one old story or another. He, among others, found himself left in the lurch; he rarely was seen to be asked.  
He did, however, wander up to the library on one occasion or another, and when he so did he made it quite a point to read alongside Dorian himself. Known to settle with a thick old book, curled against the back of Dorian's cushy chair, between piles and piles of tomes and letters he brought along to lose himself in, and read until very well past dusk. Nobody seemed to notice, let alone pay any mind.  
Regardless, the library was not where he spent his free time. On some occasion or another, he may hide in that very same spot to avoid Cullen or perhaps lady Josephine, and on the very rare occasion a quite ticked Lady Vivienne, but that was not his reading spot. None seemed to know where precisely it was he did hide away. In the moment he was required for his opinion on the most important of urgent matters, he was nowhere to be found. Kaedreyn Lavellan was never one to shirk his responsibilities, and nor would he be in such an important position. Simply oblivious to the commotion above. In these moments, the entire castle absolutely must be searched, but he always did appear to have vanished. Not to be found in his quarters. Vacant from the library, the under-croft, and the battlements. Absent from the gardens, Blackwall's barn and The Herald's Rest. Not even his companions appeared to know where it was he could be hiding.

Appearances are known to be deceiving. 

Given time, the grand majority of Skyhold would be in an absolute hurricane of search parties, alas coming up empty-handed despite. In all of this turbulence, it always did seem far too easy for Dorian to slip away unnoticed. 

Now, why nobody appeared to be aware of the existence of the staircase tucked between the doors leading towards the war table and the grand hall, neither Lavellan nor Dorian could quite say. But neither brought up the subject either.  
If one were perhaps to take this path, down the dusty old staircase, they may come to find themselves in a rather large, rather empty, rectangular room. At the front of this room stand a pair of large, stone Dwarven statues. The room had quite clearly been left abandon far longer than the rest of the castle, each statue coated in a thick layer of dust and cobwebs. Despite, it always did appear to have been particularly untouched by any sort of darkness, left beautifully in the state it had first been made.  
Standing at three out of four corners of this room lay further passages one may take, each leading to nowhere in particular. One a small storage room, another a servants entrance to the kitchens, and the third a small room, tucked quite tightly into a corner, a private library one may say, and quite well known to those allowed to, as Kaedreyn's hideaway. Books thought long lost crammed into each and every bookshelf pushed into a tight line across each wall of a thin passage. At the end of this passageway stood a rounded room not much larger. Yet more and more bookshelves lined the walls of this alcove, in the back of which stood a rather large desk. Pages torn and books lain askew littered the surface, a rather dusty, quite uncomfortable old chair pushed to the side before it. An unnecessarily large tome stood behind it, on a pedestal. This room appeared very much untouched, thick, large cobwebs stretching from one bookshelf to another, across the walls, to over-sized literature on the pedestal. Piles and piles of books across a wide range of genres surrounded the dulled feet of the chair, and every inch of the library very well appeared old and fragile. 

More often than not, this is where one may find Kaedreyn. Sitting on the cold stone flooring to the side of the chair, long legs crossed beneath him, back pressed against the old desk, a crumbling old tale held lightly in his hands, thin fingers tucked between pages in anticipation for the next word. Not even Dorian himself was quite sure what sort of words he held so firmly in his pale hands-he himself had very much stuck to the library but a few floors above, where there was a great deal less dust to choke on with each flip of a page. More often than one may expect, Dorian found himself stumbling across Lavellan so enraptured in a tale that he could barley bear to tear him from it. 

But after all, were he not to, none would. 

"You're a very difficult man to find, dear Inquisitor. At least, so I've been told."

For a moment,silence fell upon them. Fiercely focused amber eyes scanned ever so carefully over but a few more lines of delicate scrawl before turning up to regard him, lightly amused and oh-so warm, regardless of a lacking emotion settled across his face. The deep, ugly scar etched cleanly into the boneline of his right cheek ever so clear despite the low lighting. 

"Is that so? I was unaware I have been hiding."

"Yes, well, one rarely does I suppose. Nevertheless, you seem to be in popular demand at the moment."

"Am I? I was unaware."

"I'm sure you were. You seemed ever so intently focused on that book there. A good read, is it?"

Kaedreyn paused, shifting thin limbs and bending in a manner Dorian could only come to imagine to be greatly uncomfortable-although he was sitting on stone flooring and seemingly had been for quite some time already, so it must make very little difference to him one way or another-to get a proper look at the title on the spine of the dusty, crumbling old piece between his fingers. He never quite made it a habit to pick up a book without reading the title stamped across the scrappy old spine, however he did make some very special exceptions for those that he thought to appear very well read, as in that case they must be quite good.

( _Darling, all those books are crumbling and falling apart, how you ever manage to tell which are well read and which are simply past their due I shall never know,_ Dorian had once told him, late into the night as he sat before the fireplace in Kaedreyn's room in one of the many large, comfortable chairs Lavellan had brought up, fingers tangled in Kaedreyn's blindingly light hair as the elf sat at the mage's feet, leaning back against his chair as he flipped through the pages of one of his favourite stories.)

(Kaedreyn had smiled up at him, Dorian recalled, setting his book down just long enough to reach up and grip the back of his neck, pull him down for a quick, soft kiss as he mumbled his reply, _A book is only past its due when there is no one left who wishes to read it, Vhenan._ )

"I believe it to be so. Can't imagine it would appeal to an academics man such as yourself though."

"Oh? Is that a challenge, Inquisitor? I'll have you know I've read quite my fair share of fiction."

As much effort as he put into feigning offence at the connotation behind Kaedreyn's words, if the corners of his mouth twitched, pulled up into a small grin as he spoke, well than that was just something Dorian could not help.

"Not at all. Merely a comment. More of a thought, actually."

"Do you make it a habit to speak every thought that pops to mind?"

"Not to most people, no. Perhaps you're just special."

A toothy grin spread across Lavellan's own face as the Tevinter mage's laughter echoed softly off the dusty walls, and he did not struggle for a moment in deciding that as much as he had enjoyed the silence he'd found throughout the day, the sound of his laugh was music to his ears.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This I was so excited to write, so I'm not sure why I stopped. I really didn't know where I was going with it, I suppose.  
> Edited because it was long overdue for a revise. 
> 
> Anyhow. Thank you so much for reading through these. I hope they were alright, aside from being unfinished, and I would greatly appreciate any feedback you may have to offer.  
> Thank you once again for reading.  
> -Telan


	2. In Hushed Whispers

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _Dorian Pavus awoke before the sun to a panic screech he regret to admit he was all-too familiar with._
> 
> _He awoke to find the breach tearing through his heart still there._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  **Warning: Angst(?), mentions of depression(?), PTSD(?)**  
>  To be honest, I'm really awful with category tags, so warnings can be extremely difficult. I don't really know how to categorize things properly, so I usually stick to easy things that don't really need warnings. I don't know how depression nor PTSD work, as I've never had to suffer through either, but it seemed like an appropriate warning to me? Please, by all means, please correct me on any or all of these.  
> (And really, I'm not proud of this one; it's short and a little darker than what I personally prefer to write. But it was sitting on my phone, simplized and untouched for a long while, so I figured I may as well go back and touch up on it.)

Dorian Pavus awoke before the sun to a panic screech he regret to admit he was all-too familiar with.

The mage shifted, pushed himself up on his hands to sit upright, blinking the sleep from his eyes as he turned to face the source of the screaming. 

Lavellan had been through a lot. He had changed. Where once stood a sarcastic, angry, naive young elf, now stood a man with too little life burning behind his eyes. And of course it was not just him, everybody in Thedas had been through a lot, far more than anybody should ever go through in their lifetime. Whether it got to Lavellan more or if he had, indeed, suffered through more, none were certain. But none could deny that it did get to him.

So when Dorian found him, sitting bolt upright, tangled in the soft sheets he had insisted Dorian himself pick, wide awake yet eyes screwed shut, hands fisted in his blonde hair, pressing over his ears as though it may mute out the words echoing through his head over, and over again, jaw dropped slack in another blood-curdling scream, 

He could not say he was at all surprised. 

Dorian and Adriel met under uncomfortable circumstances. Horridly ugly business pertaining to his ex-mentor, a being later come to be recongized as Corypheus. Both mages tossed through time, thrown into a future nobody should ever see, barley a year ahead of their bearings. The world was crumbling, in a sense, destroying itself, utterly and miserably unsalvageable. This was a hard sight to bare for anyone. Of course it got to them both. But that on its own could not break a man. 

Iron Bull had been the first companion they stumbled across, locked away in a cell riddled with red lyrium, singing darkly of alcoholic beverages to drown away his sorrows. Perhaps a little confused, but pleased enough to see the two mages nonetheless, and more than eager to join them. Second had been Blackwall; alarmed and confused by their appearance, long since drowning in his own misery. But he went along with them regardless; anything to escape the horrid reality he occupied, whether through erasing it altogether or digging his own grave in the attempt. Fiona was the last, locked away on her own, and her he could not save. There was no way to tear her from the red lyrium that had grown into her, clung to her like ivy on an old building, breaking through the cracks in the bricks, breaking into her system. Adriel still saw the pain in her eyes, the sorrow and the dull ache of a life long-since surrendered, every time he spoke to her, until he couldn't stand to look her in the eye any longer. It had yet to get any better; Dorian doubted it ever would. 

But among everything, among the voices playing through the back of his mind, telling him he made the wrong choice, _if you have just done this, if you hadn't done that, nobody would have gotten hurt, if you had been better, if you had been stronger, they would all be okay,_ the voices of lives long since lost in the well, the concerns of his advisers when his attention broke away at the war table, the memories of battles barley won and dangers never conquered, none quite stood out to him as strongly as Leliana. As the broken, angry voice of abandonment and blame they had found in the disgusting future they had barley lived through, barley believed, so long ago.

Some nights he awoke with a jolt, ice cold despite the comforting summer heat of Skyhold and the soft, warm blankets he draped over his sheets, tense and out of breath, unshed tears burning behind his eyes. Others he awoke in a panic, reality numbed to his eyes until he could only see the faces of those he had let down, those who had lost to his mistakes, only hear the voices of those whose lives had been lost on his account, whose blood had spilt on his own hands. And on the rare occasion, he woke terrified. Unable to breathe, to control his voice, his body, the tears soaking his pale skin, on rare occasions he awoke from a terror he could not escape, on these nights. Where all he could do was scream, fists clenched and knuckles white, eyes shut tight, praying to the Maker he didn't believe in for the images to fade, their voices to drown away.  
_Maybe just for it all to end._

And nobody knew what to do. Nobody knew what to say, what was okay to do and what was not. How to silence the screaming and dry the tears that clung to his lashes. And it felt like he was right back at Haven; starving and cold, wounded and weak and oh-so terribly lost, until snow was the only thing he could see, bright and white and cold, harsh and relentless. There were moments when he tried to talk about it, to hint that he wasn't okay, that he needed to say something, but he could never quite get it right. Always tried to play it off as though he were joking, pretend he let less weakness slip than he did, but Dorian always caught it. By the tone of his voice, or the look in his eyes, a silent plea for help, but an uncertainty of what that help entitled, lost and unsure of what he needed most.

So he tried to offer him all of the good memories. All of the nights spent around a campfire, Dorian, Adriel, Varric and Bull, swapping stories and laughing at the embarrassing ones somebody always seemed to let slip. Of that flicker of light brought back to life behind someone's eyes when they thought all hope was lost and the Inquisition came around and showed them the way out. Of the evenings they would spend, Adriel settled comfortably by Dorian's side, fire burning in the fireplace as the Tevinter read aloud a tale Adriel had picked out just to hear his voice, just to listen to him speak and add his own witty little narrations on the side, while the elf drifted off, leaning against the wall as Dorian read. He could do little to help, and he could not stop the night terrors. But it was a start.

And if the weight on his shoulders still made it hard for Adriel to get up in the morning, threatened to crush him, if he could never drown away the sick feeling that bubbled in Adriel's stomach, the difficulty of breathing, the dread and fear that burrowed their way into his heart and weighed him down, at least he could say he was trying. And he really was trying. 

Dorian Pavus awoke to the Inquisitor, his Lavellan, screaming.

He awoke to find the breach tearing through his heart was still there.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Really, this all started with Leliana during the In Hushed Whispers Mage-Side questline. When I first saw her, my heart dropped, and though it was neither mine nor Adriel's fault that the world had taken a turn for the worst in that timeline, I felt awful for it. And so Adriel slowly began to shift from being the short-tempered, sarcastic, kind-of-harsh elf he started as to horribly terrified and lost.  
> (Of course, he was my first playthrough, and my first playthrough was during a time I was still struggling with social anxiety a lot more, so he unfortunately got a little bit of that as well.  
> ....Sorry, Adriel.)
> 
> But, anyhow. Thank you so much for reading, and I would really appreciate any feedback you may have to offer!  
> Like I said, I'm not really proud of this one, so I would really like to know it it's okay or not.  
> Thank you, once again, for reading!  
> -Telan


End file.
